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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23080831">Sunsoaked</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate'>Westgate (Harkpad)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Beaches, M/M, Recovery, winterhawk - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 10:54:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,124</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23080831</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky steals Clint away for a couple weeks at Tony's place in the Caribbean. It's not a vacation at first, but it gets there.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>163</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sunsoaked</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for a Tumblr prompt by loonyloopylisa! (my Tumblr is Westgateoh)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It hadn’t started out as a vacation.</p><p>“He needs a break, Steve,” Bucky said when Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky’s announcement that he and Clint were leaving for Tony’s place in the Caribbean. “He’s done needing a doctor every week, so we’re just gonna go for a couple weeks. Tony said it’s secluded.”</p><p>“What about the team?” Steve said, but Bucky could tell it was just a token protest. “You’re healthy.”</p><p>Bucky ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah, and you know damned well that my focus is for shit when he’s – look. It’s not that he’s hurt. He’s been hurt before. It’s just,” Bucky tried, but the words were hard for him. Admitting out loud that this one was worse, how, when the strangled scream had come over the comms from the rooftop where Clint was positioned, Bucky’s blood had run colder than it had ever been. How this wait in the hospital had been the worst wait in a life full of waiting for things to get better. How Clint was still forcing smiles around lingering pain and Bucky couldn’t seem to reach him, to help him, no matter how hard he tried.</p><p>“I know, Buck,” Steve sighed. “I think it’s good. Go, and we’ll be there to help if you just give a shout.”</p><p>So, it didn’t start as a vacation.</p><p>Bucky had packed and Clint had watched, his forced smile dropped from his face and replaced with a growing frown. He had protested the idea. Bucky packed anyway, and finally loaded a couple of suitcases (one was mostly books and a couple of games he’d learned to like since his stay in the Tower) and Clint into Tony’s waiting car.</p><p>Tony drove; he accompanied them in his private jet, and then drove again when they landed at the small, private airport. He helped Bucky carry the suitcases while Clint threw his ratty backpack over his shoulder and followed them into the pastel blue bungalow, his dark sunglasses and stoic face hiding any kind of reaction to the place. There were palm trees drooping over the house and the smell of orchids and other lush flowers filled the air. Bucky drew a deep breath before they went inside and his shoulders dropped just a little.</p><p>“All right, kids, no one should bother you. I ordered a week’s worth of groceries based on your typical tower order and threw in a few island extras,” Tony said with a wink at Bucky, who grinned and glanced over at Clint. The frown was still stuck on his face.</p><p>Bucky sighed. “Thanks, Tony.”</p><p>“Yeah, sure. Later this week just send me an updated list for week two and I’ll have it sent. You don’t have to leave this house if you don’t want to. If you want to, there’s a car in the back, and directions to the closest town in your phone. There are a couple good seafood restaurants and a tiki bar that Pepper and Natasha like, too.”</p><p>Clint raised his chin a bit at the mention of Natasha, and Bucky suddenly wondered if Nat had anything to do with Clint relenting on this trip. Whatever worked, he figured.</p><p>Tony was gone within the hour, and Bucky unloaded the bags in the master bedroom and headed to the kitchen to scrounge up some lunch. Clint was nowhere to be found inside, but Bucky figured if the car was still around he wouldn’t have gone far. He made two plates with sandwiches and fruit and gathered a couple bottles of water and went looking. When he stepped out the sliding back door, he stopped and forgot how to breathe.</p><p>He stepped out onto a rectangle teak deck lined with small, unlit tiki torches. At the end of the deck was a raised box, about twenty feet long by eight wide, with shimmering blue pool water on the inside and neat gray bricks on the outside. A palm tree reached over the pool and the earthy brown deck was speckled with more colorful tropical plants. Past the pool was a glistening white beach, with more palm trees and four teak, floral-cushioned lounge chairs and a couple of small tables between them. The smell of saltwater and sand and flowers flowed over Bucky and he felt his shoulders drop even more.</p><p>Clint was stretched out in one of the chairs, so Bucky headed out and set the plates and drinks on the table next to him. The trees offered shade and the waves washed a kind of music onto the shoreline that Bucky seemed to feel in his chest, like each swish of water onto the sound debrided a bit of his scarred insides away. He sat quietly, letting Clint have his space and letting the water and salt air do its work on his own body.</p><p>They ate, and each drank the water completely before Clint finally spoke up.</p><p>“Maybe we shouldn’t be laying on the beach in jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts?”</p><p>Bucky could hear the soft smile in his voice and took it for the kind of truce it was. “We have privacy,” he said. “And apparently a private beach.” Clint looked over and Bucky shook his head. “Can’t say I’ve ever had a private beach before.” He paused and added, “I can’t say I’ve ever been to a tropical beach before at all, really. It’s stunning.”</p><p>Clint nodded and stood up to stretch. “I’ve worked a couple cases on the beach, but that’s it.” He tilted his head and cracked his neck. “I’m gonna go change.”</p><p>Bucky let him go. Accusations of hovering over the last few weeks kept him in the chair, but the bright blue sky and shimmering blue water he was looking at helped. He sank back in the chair.</p><p>The day passed quietly. Bucky eventually went in and threw on shorts and a t-shirt and he threw together a salad with some chicken and set one at the table next to the pool and carried his own back out to the beach. As Bucky finished up his meal, he heard music, one of Clint’s old sixties and seventies playlists, being piped from somewhere to a small speaker on one of the beach tables. A few minutes later, Clint handed Bucky a glass of juice with big, chunky ice cubes, the way he liked it. He sat down at the end of the chair Bucky was sitting in and stared out into the ocean.</p><p>“I didn’t want to come,” he said quietly, and the waves almost washed the sound away before Bucky could catch it.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“It’s nice here, though, Buck.”</p><p>“Yeah, it is. I – I’m sorry if you felt forced.”</p><p>“No, I just didn’t want to come.” Clint paused and leaned back with a grimace and Bucky pulled him close to his own chest and wrapped his arms around Clint’s waist and rested his chin on Clint’s shoulder. They watched the water and the sun drifted down into the horizon. “I’m sorry,” Clint whispered. “I’ve been a jerk.”</p><p>“You’ve been healing,” Bucky replied, and he pulled Clint’s hand into his. “I just thought it might be nice to finish up here instead of in the city.”</p><p>“I’m tired, Bucky.”</p><p>Bucky leaned them both back so they were staring at the sky as it filled with stars. “Rest. That’s all you have to do here.”</p><p>“Okay,” Clint said, and they were quiet again as the sky danced with dotted brilliance. Clint’s breathing evened out and Bucky held him long into the night, enjoying the tapestry of stars and the sounds of the ocean waves washing up onto the shore.</p><p>Most mornings that first week, Clint slept a lot and Bucky went for long walks on the beach, and then he fixed a brunch that they shared on the beach. He experimented with food and took his time in cooking, even dredging up some old, hearty Brooklyn breakfast recipes his ma taught him those decades ago. Clint’s face when he tried Bucky’s handmade biscuits was priceless.</p><p>Clint did laps in the pool each day, a few more every time, and the dark circles under his eyes disappeared as his skin bronzed a little more and the sun bleached his hair even brighter blond. Bucky ran his hands through Clint’s hair as they waded in the shallow ocean water one afternoon and laughed. “You’re lookin’ more like a beach bum every day, Clint.”</p><p>“Takes one to know one, Barnes,” Clint replied, and then very purposefully raked his eyes down Bucky’s body and back up again. “You’re looking good.”</p><p>Bucky had tanned, too, and he’d cut the split ends of his hair and wore it up most days, and he just felt settled, calm, like all the shit in New York and with the crazies the team fought and the politics Tony had to play and the general noise of the city was gone, and life had narrowed to breakfast, beach, pool, lunch, beach, sunset, water, stars, bed.</p><p>It felt good.</p><p>He grinned at Clint, who had finished his last round of antibiotics and pain meds and was now just letting the sun bake the rest of his weariness and injury away, and playfully shoved him back into the surf, and actually caught him off guard. He stumbled, laughing, and only found his balance once he was on his knees, which let him launch himself at Bucky and wrap him around his waist. They both tumbled into the warm, clear water and wrestled until they were breathless and laughing.</p><p>They stumbled onto the white sand and Clint flopped down dramatically, spread out like a starfish. Bucky sat down next to him and dug his fingers into the sand.</p><p>“You get sand in those plates?” Clint asked. “Been meaning to ask how that thing’s handling the beachfront.”</p><p>“Just have to clean it at night. Not a big deal,” Bucky replied. “I could even build a sandcastle.”</p><p>Clint sat up and his eyes were bright. He grinned. “You wanna? We’ve got some good pans and stuff at the house.”</p><p>Bucky blinked. “Pans?”</p><p>“Have you ever built a sandcastle?”</p><p>“Um. No. I thought you just shoved sand around until it looked like a castle?”</p><p>Clint smirked. “Only if you wanna look like an amateur. Wait here.”</p><p>He hopped up and Bucky watched him head back to the house and disappear inside. While he waited, he stood up and went down to where the water met the sand and poked around in the shallow water with his toes. He liked to stir up the sand so the little sand crabs skittered. They were cute. He looked up when Clint dumped a pile of various sized bowls and plastic containers onto the sand with a clatter.</p><p>“C’mon, Bucky. I’ll show you,” he called with a wave.</p><p>An hour later and Bucky was snapping a photo and sending it off to Steve and Natasha, and Clint was gathering the bowls and things back into the canvas tote bag he’d brought them in. “Not bad for your first sandcastle,” he said with a soft smile as Bucky stood next to him to show him the picture.</p><p>“Not bad? It’s got two stories, a parapet, and a moat. It’s fantastic!”</p><p>Clint laughed. “It really is.”</p><p>“Hey,” Bucky said, letting Clint’s laughter buoy him, “Leave that stuff for now. It’s a private beach. Walk with me.” He held his hand out.</p><p>Clint glanced down at the mess and hesitated, but then he slipped his hand into Bucky’s and they walked. They wandered all the way down to the public area a mile or so away, and then headed back to the house, laughing and talking and holding hands. They stood watching the sun go down and Bucky leaned in to kiss Clint. He could taste the salt air on his lips, and he brushed Clint’s hair away from his face. “Wanna go out with me, handsome?”</p><p>Clint smiled and nodded. “I hear the tiki bar is cool.”</p><p>Bucky threw on some khaki shorts and a light blue button down over a white t-shirt, and Clint came out wearing white shorts and a navy floral print shirt and Bucky couldn’t resist pulling Clint in for another kiss. “You clean up good,” he said, and Clint pressed his body close.</p><p>“I’m gonna pull that t-shirt off of you with my teeth later,” he said, and it took Bucky’s breath away. “Later,” Clint repeated, pulling back with a sharp grin. “For now, I want a fruity drink with an umbrella and some shrimp.”</p><p>Bucky licked his lips and nodded. “Fruity drink and shrimp, right. Teeth later. Gottit.”</p><p>And later that night, once Bucky’s t-shirt was on the floor, it finally felt like vacation.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
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